Fueguian cranial morphology: The adaptation to a cold, harsh environment |
| Miquel Hernández *, Carles Lalueza Fox, Clara Garcia-Moro |
Secció Antropologia, Departament Biologia Animal, Facultat Biologia, Universitat de Barcelona, 08028 Barcelona, Spain
|
| email: Miquel Hernández (Email: miquelh@porthos.bio.ub.es) |
*Correspondence
to Miquel Hernández, Secció Antropologia, Dept. Biologia Animal,
Facultat Biologia, Universitat Barcelona, Avda Diagonal 645, 08028
Barcelona, Spain,
| Tierra del Fuego • craniometry • nasal form • cold stress • human adaptation • Mongoloids |
| Craniometric
data from the three extinct tribes that inhabited Tierra del Fuego
(Selk'nam, Yámana, and Kawéskar) were gathered following Howells's
measurement technique. We studied 180 skulls preserved at thirteen
different institutions. Analysis of variance (ANOVA) between groups
showed that morphological similarities among Fueguian groups are far
more important than some differences between marine (Yámana and
Kawéskar) and terrestrial (Selk'nam) groups. A principal component
analysis (PCA) generated from the correlation matrix shows that
Fueguians fall as outliers with respect to the typical Mongoloid
morphology. In addition, a UPGMA tree generated from a squared
Euclidean distance matrix indicates that Fueguian groups have a
morphological pattern that is very distinct from that of other
present-day Amerindian groups, with the exception of the Eskimos. One
of the variables that contributes substantially to the differentiation
of Eskimos and Fueguians is the nasal height. This suggests that nasal
morphology in both groups could be a response to adaptive pressures
related to the cold environment. However, other morphological
particularities of Fueguian skulls, such as craniofacial robustness and
variables of craniofacial width, can be attributed to a large
masticatory stress. As a whole, the morphological features of Fueguian
groups can be regarded as a general adaptive response to a very harsh
environment, along with the retention of some plesiomorphic features.
Assuming that the initial entry in Tierra de Fuego took place around
10,000 years BP, before the disappearance of the last land bridges in
the Magellan Straits, then this adaptation might have arisen in a
relatively short period, hastened by the extreme environmental
conditions. Am J Phys Anthropol 103:103-117, 1997. © 1997 Wiley-Liss,
Inc. |
Received: 26 February 1996; Accepted: 2 February 1997
10.1002/(SICI)1096-8644(199705)103:1<103::AID-AJPA7>3.0.CO;2-X
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